INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov&s son, Serdar, is poised to win Saturday&s snap presidential election and succeed his father as
the ruler of a gas-rich Central Asian nation of six million.President Berdymukhamedov, in power since 2007, called the vote last month,
saying he wanted to give way to a new generation of leaders and the ruling Democratic party quickly nominated his son, Reuters
reported.Serdar Berdymukhamedov, 40, who has already been elevated to the No.2 position in the country as a deputy prime minister, will run
against eight other candidates, some of whom are virtually unknown low-level public servants.An engineer and a diplomat by education, he has
swiftly risen through government ranks, and local media refer to him as &the son of the nation&, while his 64-year-old father is known as
Arkadag, or Protector.The outgoing president has said he would remain the speaker of the upper house of parliament after handing over the
presidency.Turkmenistan, a former Soviet republic bordering Iran and Afghanistan, sits on the world&s fourth-largest natural gas reserves
and exports gas by pipelines to China and Russia.The post Turkmen president&s son likely to succeed father in election first appeared on
